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Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Greek Simit are the popular sesame crusted bread rings sold on the street corners and bakeries everywhere in Athens. This is one of famous bread which suits prefectly for a busy Athenian's breakfast. Just a cup of coffee and this sesame bread rings is quite enough to fill anyone's tummy.When i was searching something different and interesting for this month's Baking Eggless,a monthly event owned by Gayathri, i got hooked to these cute looking sesame bread rings, as the host of this month Eggless baking, i suggested this bread rings to Gayathri and she accepted immediately.

About the baking eggless group,every month a host will challenge the group members with a baked goodies with eggs, the member of this group should convert this baked goodies with eggs to an eggless bakes with available egg substitutes,obviously this bread rings are eggless, dairy free and completely vegan. The Original recipe used an egg and whole milk which i completely skipped and went for silken tofu.The addition of tofu turned this bread extremely spongy, if you serve them with jam or any spread for your breakfast am sure everyone at home will enjoy thoroughly this incredible sesame crusted bread rings.Also the original recipe went for grape-must syrup for coating this simiti which i completely skipped and used water for it.We loved having this fantastic nutty koulouri aka Simiti with our usual breakfast beverages, beware these simitis are quite filling and addictive too.Today is the last thursday of the month and its time to post for Vegan Thursdays, an vegan event running twice a month and this rasam goes to this event too.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Chicken is one of the lean meat we love to have atleast once a week especially on Sundays. Sunday lunch is always special if hubby is at home. Coz he works two weekends alternatively and if he is at home, he love to have a feast especially on Sunday lunch. I'll prepare either biryani or else a gravy with chicken to serve mostly for our sunday lunch. While i googling i got hooked to this Mangalorean special chicken ghee roast at Charishma's space. Her pictures pulled me a lot and immediately i planned to make this juicy and highly flavourful chicken ghee roast for our sunday lunch. I simply served this chicken ghee roast with a simple sambhar bhath and we enjoyed our lunch thoroughly.

If you want to make a different chicken roast, you should give a try to this dish, am sure this chicken ghee roast will become your favourite. Its our family favourite now and even i passed this recipe to my French friend who loved spicy Indian foods. Seems she already prepared thus chicken ghee roast twice. Ghee plays an important role in this chicken roast, dont skip ghee also ghee is good for health. Frequent intake of ghee is not good but once a while you can take them without any guilt.However i tempered this roast with a cinnamon stick, which is completely optional.Its 4th sunday of the month and since i belong to a group of friends who blogs on sunday for the event Let's Brunch On Sundays am posting this fantastic chicken roast.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Baguette is a French bread, which is quite famous all around the world and this bread is symbol of French cuisine and France as well.This bread is a long thin loaf commonly made from a basic bread dough.This baguette is prepared simply with direct addition of yeast and its not prepared with a pre frement or poolish or biga like other pre-frements bread.Baguettes are used for sandwiches, they are often sliced and served with different stuffing. Traditionally baguette are served for breakfast with bread and jam while the kids love with their favourite chocolate spread for their breakfast.

French peoples wont go back to their home without baguette after their work,this bread is one of their main food which they enjoy thoroughly with anything.Even am an ardent fan of this incredible bread and obviously i eagerly waiting to try this bread at home. Finally i got a chance to give a try at home and believe me they turned out extremely as much as prefect like the bakery bought ones. Instead of making a strandard baguette i went for the mini ones.If you want to make the standard baguettes, just go on. This mini French baguette, an another challenge i suggested to the members of Home Baker's Challenge, a monthly baking event where we bake varieties of bakes every month.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Bloggy world is an immense world and its wonderful to find out friends with same passions for foods.Many new bloggers join this world every day and really its hard to track them. If a new blogger who have a passion for food starts a blog, i know how its hard to get introduce to this immense world. Keeping this on my mind, i started a new event. Rendez vous with a foodie, a monthly event happening twice a month, this event is specially created for new bloggers who blogs since less than two years. This event will showcase their blogs, their passion for foods and many more. If you want to join me, just send me a message in our Facebook group or leave your mail address in this comment section. This event is going successfully and happy that i came to know more about my guest hosts through this event.

Coming to today's guest host, i came to know her through a challenge, one fine day she pinged me asking whether she can join this event, how wonderful na. Who can resist to this friendly request? i said immediately Yes. Actually i suggested an another date to Sangeetha of Eat N Eat Little More,but suddenly the host of today couldnt make her post coz of her trip to India. Immediately i pinged Sangeetha asking whether she can make a guest post for me and gave her 10days to send me her guest post. But seriously Sangeetha is just amazing, within a day she send her guest post with pictures and her replies for the questions i asked for. Through her replies i came to know that she wasnt living far away from me. Am in Paris and she is in Germany, wish a day she or myself should plan to trip to meet each other either in Paris or in Germany. From the way Sangeetha talk through her words, i can definitely say that she is a humble, very friendly and very kind human, thanks Sangeetha for being this much kind with me eventhough i didnt gave you much time to you for making your guest post.Wish our friendship bond gets very closer as much as possible in future.

I was constantly seeing in my blogfeed Rendezvous with a Foodie in Priya's space from long time and she was doing this just to bring a new blogger to limelight. An attempt to push the upcoming bloggers a step up in the ladder of blogging . I really appreciate this attempt of hers. I was very much willing to feature in her space and for that I did drop a request and she accepted my request with no further due and even scheduled a date for me. I was quite amazed with this warm acceptance she showed. I still remember the day she posted a recipe of Eggless Choux with eggless chocolate mousse and she annonced that it had been 5 years since she started blogging. I was so much amazed when I learnt that. Yes this needs constant dedication. And I believe she does post even now with same zeal. And to talk about her food photography skills, they are excellent. No doubt in that. To mention a few, I can say the Spiral Moon Cake, Laugenbrezel etc.

I can no more tell I'm new to blogging world as it is almost reaching an year since I started blogging. Cooking was my hidden passion I believe as that revealed only after I came to Germany. Until then I was just an admirer of all who are excellent cooks. I started cooking more and more with different ingredients adjusting to our taste, learnt few traditional recipes from mom and my MIL, few from friends and relatives. Finally with constant request I gave an entry to Blogging world with my tiny blog 'Eat n Eat little More' and now that I have entered I wish to keep going and not stop at any point of time. It is no more a hidden passion rather I proudly say I'm a Food blogger.

1)Tell us about your blog and you?
To tell about me, I'm a software engineer by profession, now spending my time in the world of food blogging. I must say I was very new to cooking as before marriage I was pampered with all cooking done by my mom and I never bothered to enter kitchen. After marriage also I never felt that managing kitchen is difficult as I used to go to work and just managing a simple sambhar or a sidedish was not so difficult for rice to set our dinner table. Breakfast and lunch used to be in office canteens for both me and my hubby. I realised the importance of cooking different and healthy when I relocated to Germany and I was having a small kid of 1 year by then. I started cooking varieties at home as I was free almost all the time.To be frank it is not so easy to spend daily outside here in Indian restaurants or any other eating joints as they seem to be extremely costly when compared to the bills we used to pay in Bangalore hotels (now even they are getting costlier day by day as I heard from my friends). Cooking became my passion then, not sure if it was inherited as my mom used to love cooking and she too used to prepare delicacies infact she learnt many sweets and savories during our stay in Gujarat.

2)Before and after blogging, tell us what blogging changed your life?
Yes it has changed my life for sure, I became a busy mom now with my Food blog coming into existence. A kind of satisfaction with this I get which can't be expressed in words though.

3)When and what motivated you to blog about food?
I was never ever hitting google for a basic recipes or for simple dessert like carrot halwa or gulab jamoons as for me then my Google was my mom or mother in law. I used to give a call and they used to help me out. But after I came here slowly and gradually I used to try out recipes that I followed in Youtube. Soon I started hitting Google for the same and saw umpteen number of sites(blogs) and was amazed with the beauty and clear cut explanations being provided. I was indeed very much interested to own a blog of my own where I could store few recipes that I learn from net or from family and friends and keep it for my future reference. More over I had ample amount of time and found food blogging to be an ideal way to spend time and soon it became an obsession for me.Hence came into existence Eat n Eat little More.

4)There are a tonsof blogs/pages on food these days, what accordingto you is the speciality of your blog and the food you cook?
I could just say I'm no greater than any other. But definitely I can say it is a pure veggie blog as I abstain to the usage of even eggs in my cooking being a pure vegetarian and proud to own few recipes that are part of our family tradition.

5) When it comes to cooking, who is your inspiration?

Cooking is something that all or any one can do, but I definitely am inspired by my mother as she is a great cook according to me.

6)Every newbie blogger faces tons of challenges when its comes to blogging, tell me about one of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome it?

I can say I faced lot of difficulties. To get in pace with blogging world, I was not aware of how to begin with. I just had a dream alone. I used to share pics in Facebook in my albums. Few friends of mine suggested me as why not I include recipes too as they seem to be very much interesting. I started writing them up as they requested. Soon I was requested to make them public rather that sharing with few friends of mine. One of my good friend asked me to start a blog. I initally had spent around a day's time to coin a name for my blog. He helped me alot in the intial phases, guiding me every now and then. I'm really happy that I could overcome quite a few if not many under his guidance. He helped me with header. Setting up a blog using Blogger was quite easy for me. But the way it should look and all sorts of customisations were based on his suggestions, to tell an example,Having Recipe Index as a dropdown on the side bar will help users to select desired recipes from categories specified.

7)What is your best recipe and your favourite recipes you have blogged till now?

Best recipe is Indian Butter Cookies/Nankhatai as it was my 1st attempt and that was the best cookies I ever had.

Favourite is Instant Jalebi. I was happy with the outcome on my second attempt.

8)Few tips about food photography?

I'm very new to photography. I'm not a good photographer but still try to get the best shot out of all to put it up here. I still can suggest one thing which I have got ot know from personal experience that day light is the best light for photography and avoid using flash though I cannot at times when it comes to night time photography.

9)What is your budget for the props,do you have any or else do you manage with your household stuffs?

No I must say, till date I have not purchased props to decorate. I use what are available in my pantry.

10)How do you plan your blog posts? Do you post rarely,regularly or once a week?

I plan daily but end up posting twice or thrice in a week nowadays when compared to my initial days of blogging due to my other commitments here.

11)Do you have any other passions apart from food blogging or blogs you own?

I do not own any other blog other than this food blog, but yes I love learning new languages and now I'm going to a class to learn German.

Lets move off to my post here today Garlicky Cheesy Fusilli Pasta. I got the recipe from a friend of mine Chaithra Mailankody. I altered it a little adjusting to our taste.

Garlicky Cheesy Fusilli Pasta

Makes 2 serves

Ingredients:

Fusilli Pasta-250 gms

Garlic-3-4 pods chopped

Onion-1 big chopped thin lengthwise

Green Capsicum-1/2 chopped

Black pepper powder-1 tsp.

Garlic salt/Garlic powder-1/2 tsp.

Milk-2 cups

All purpose flour-1 tbsp.

Cheese slices-2

Oregano-1/4 tsp.

Oil-2 tbsp.

Salt to taste

Recipe:

Boil water adding salt as required and when boiled add pasta and cook them till aldente. Drain and set aside.In a pan add oil, when hot add chopped garlic and saute till rawness is almost gone.

Add onions and saute on high flame followed by that add capsicum and saute on high flame.

Add pepper, garlic salt and saute on high flame.

In a bowl add milk and all purpose flour and make a lumpfree solution out of it and pour it over the sauteed mixture and add salt as required keeping in mind about the salt in pasta and the garlic salt being added and cook on a low flame.

Add cheese once the mixture begins to slowly thicken.

Cook till mixture thickens.

Pop in the cooked pasta and mix well till all pasta is well coated.Add oregano on top.

The garlicky cheesy fusilli pasta is ready to serve.

Notes:

Do not cook pasta too much ahead from the time of preparing pasta as that may make them dry and the sauce prepared will not coat the pasta well.It is best to cook pasta simultaneously as you prepare the sauce. But if your are not sure of cooking together do cook just before preparing the sauce, drain and set aside.

Cook pasta till 'Al dente' Al dente' is an Italien word which describes Pasta and means means "to the tooth" or "to the bite", referring to the need to chew the pasta due to its firmness.

Saute the capsicum on a high flame so as to retain the crispiness of the veggies. You may add as many veggies as you like.

You may add more of black pepper if you like it more spicy.

Hope you all enjoyed this creamy pasta from Sangeetha of Eat N Eat Little More, stay tuned for an another guest host..

Thursday, January 16, 2014

French desserts are incomplete without a chocolate dessert, chocolate based desserts are the most famous desserts from French cuisine. French chocolate mousse or French chocolate cream are quite famous around the world and seriously i do these baked chocolate cream once a while at home coz they goes for eggs. Since am keeping myself away from eggs,i dont bake desserts or cakes with eggs quite often but once a while its really fabulous to have this kind of rich dessert. Coming to this baked chocolate cream, this dish is an easy breezy dessert, which can be prepared quickly eventhough this baked chocolate cream need atleast two hours to get set in fridge.Each and every spoon of this baked chocolate cream is just simply out of the world.

This chocolate cream cant be baked without eggs and eggs are the prominent ingredient for making this rich,delicious and incredible dessert.This baked French chocolate cream is an another challenge i suggested to the members of a monthly baking event called Home Baker's Challenge where we bake many beautiful bakes with simple ingredients at home. If you are interested, do join the group and learn many bakes together with other members. Every month, a host will suggest her baking challenge and the member of the group prepared one out of the bakes suggested by the host. Since am the host of January, i challenged the group members with French baked goodies.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Sablé is a French shortbread biscuits, well known for their melt in mouth texture. This shortbread biscuits are quite famous all over France eventhough they origin is from Caen, a town from Normandy region.I had a chance to see how these shortbreads are baked during a trip to this town. Whenever you cross the industrial area where these shortbread companies are situated you will be definitely attracted by the smell of freshly baked sablés. Obviously i came back to Paris with enough boxes of these shortbread biscuits, my kids love this biscuits anytime and they love to munch with their bowl of hot chocolate for their breakfast, yes you can start your day with this buttery shortbreads.

The French word sable means sand, also this biscuit was created for the first time in a town called Sablé sur Sarthe few years ago, coz of the texture and the origin these biscuits are named as Sablé, however these biscuits are seriously very soft,delicate,buttery with a fantastic texture. A wonderful pair to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee when the weather is down outside. These sablés are prepared specially for the members of this month's Home Baker's Challenge, a baking event happening every month.Its 2nd sunday of the month and since i belong to a group of friends who blogs on sunday for the event Let's Brunch On Sundays am posting this biscuits.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Hope you all had a fabulous New year bash, once again Happy new year wishes to you all. Today's post goes to a beautiful bread aka vegan flat bread from Northern region of France. This bread is almost like the pita bread but with a white crust, this bread is quite often prepared for making sandwiches but somehow the peoples in North France enjoy them for their breakfast too with butter and jam. This bread goes for easy ingredients, an easy breezy vegan bread to give a trial if you are experimenting in bread baking at home.

This faluche bread is a traditional bread with a soft texture, it can be either round or flat but looks somewat like a soccer ball. You can have this bread for anytime of the day with your choice of filling. Since Faluche is made with white flour,yeast,water,salt and oil,this bread is easy to prepare. In French bakeries, this bread is often baked in the oven just heating up before the main baking, see how fast they gets baked. I chosed to bake this bread for our this month's Home Baker's Challenge, a monthly baking event started by a group of friends. This month's Home Bakers Challenge goes for some beautiful French bakes i suggested to the members of this group. One among those bakes is this Faluche du Nord.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Do you want to know about Rendez Vous with a Foodie event happening twice a month in my space? its all about the newbie blogger who started crawling in this immense virtual world. Every 7th and 20th of the month i'll be inviting newbie bloggers from this bloggy world to write a guest post in my space.It can be anything, we dont have any specific cuisine or any specific theme. Obviously a couple of my fellow bloggers have participated and did their guest post since few months.If you are interested do let me know, i'll send the details about this event.

Today's guest host, i came to know her through few challenges and one fine day she pinged me asking whether she can make a guest post for this event, i immediately said Yes. She was kind enough to send me

her guest post very much quickly eventhough i asked her to send me pretty much earlier coz of my trip to India. She is none other than Sharanya aka Shey Divine of Just Not The Cakes. She is a young chef, an excellent baker who creates many delicious and beautiful cakes from her kitchen. If you go through her creations, you will get tempted and obviously you will definitely drool over her unique creations.Wish a day, i'll do as much as like Shey's creations. Not only she bakes, she dish out so many incredible dishes and am a great fan of her few dishes which makes me hungry whenever go through her space, one of her recent post i have completely fallen in love is Kesari Raj Bhog. Do check Shey's space friends, am sure you will be amazed to see all her bakes and dishes.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Rasam is my favourite food, i can survive for many days with this Indian soup. My space shares varieties of rasams and you can find different and unique rasams here. To that incredible collection of rasams, am adding one more rasam which may become your regular dish to enjoy with some hot steaming rice. Yes this rasam is simply prepared with drumstick flesh aka drumstick pulp and toor dal. Actually i prepared this rasam intentionaly to know how tasty will be this Indian soup if i add the iron rich drumstick pulps in it. Am not wrong, this rasam is just simply delicious with a wonderful flavour and obviously drumstick pulp addition makes this rasam more healthier.

If you want to try a different rasam, you should give a try to this delicious,fingerlicking food. Whoever says 'no' to drumstick will definitely become an ardent fan of this rasam. I used drumstick pulps after cooking drumstick pods separately and went adding just like that, if you want to make them more interesting, just grind them as bit coarse paste and use it in this rasam. Today is the last thursday of the month and its time to post for Vegan Thursdays, an vegan event running twice a month and this rasam goes to this event too.